The Fire Commissioner's 'Fee'
A whistleblower exposes a brazen bribery scheme within the Seattle Fire Department, revealing how public jobs were allegedly sold for cold cash.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It became evident when the city council met last night that the fur would fly. The hearing of the charges against Fire Commissioner Foster attracted a large gathering. Oswald Vitzthum, the accuser, testified that when he sought a job in the fire department, Commissioner Foster told him that if he could 'lend' him $150, he might be able to fix it. Vitzthum eventually handed over the money, receiving a note in return, and was placed as a stoker. Vitzthum claimed that he later felt compelled to relinquish the note without repayment to avoid being pushed out of the department. Vitzthum described Foster as telling him, 'This is only a little bit between two of us,' when soliciting another $100. Despite a vigorous cross-examination by Foster's attorney, Vitzthum maintained his account of the transaction, which sparked laughter and roars from the gallery.
“Foster walked away, 'the money was gone and the note was gone, but I had a job in the fire department.'”
This 1892 scandal reflects the era's 'spoils system' politics, where municipal employment was often treated as a private commodity rather than a public service. Today, while we have more robust civil service protections, the struggle to keep civic appointments transparent and free from patronage remains a core tension in local governance.
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